Should a Muslim Be President in America?

The press asks Ben Carson "Do you think a Muslim should be president?" Carson answers "No, I don't." The press immediately pounces, portraying Carson as a bigot. Carson then restates his position with greater nuance, suggesting that if said Muslim was not a supporter of Sharia Law, then, maybe. Again, the media lunges at his alleged "soft bigotry" with a gleeful "gotcha!" And, for days and days his words are played and replayed on an endless loop as the press waits for the next misstatement by a Republican candidate.

Here's the thing, America is a nation with a past, a tradition of faith and politics which sits at its very core. That tradition is Christian in nature. This is often where Leftists and disgruntled, former Christians say "America isn't a Christian nation, look at slavery, look at the Native American genocide!" Each of these critics seem to have some notion of what a Christian nation should look like, based primarily on their newly minted post-Christian world-view. Their deep convictions run only as deep as their understanding of both politics and historical Christianity, however. Which, apparently, isn't very deep. So, for them, throwing the baby and the bathwater out together is an easy task.

This new open-mindedness they confuse with enlightenment. If only the world were really that simple, we could all adjust our perspective and move forward. But, it isn't that simple. Old ideas, flawed though they might be, die hard, especially when you're talking about tens of millions of individuals. A few decades ago, if that same question was asked, of almost any politician or individual American, the answer would have been nearly unanimously dismissed as ridiculous. Today, however, a new youth perspective is in full swing--made up of young-folk who've barely lived away from home or bought a house or a car without their mother's co-signature. They are sure of the righteousness of their beliefs, though, just as we were.

From this perspective an illiterate hobo might make a helluva a president, assuming you could find a field of illiterate hobos with the necessary background and skills from which to choose Which, statistically speaking, is about as likely as finding a field of illiterate hobos with the necessary background and skills to be president (sorry for the redundancy.) But, in a world where any hypothetical scenario can be offered as serious—no matter how ridiculous—redundancies hardly seem redundant.

Finally, I have no doubt that there are many Muslims in the world who might make great leaders, even in America. They would have to share our culture's values, our history and our political ideology, though. And that is where the problems begin. Which values, of which Americans, what economic model would be used, which rule of law and whose interpretation of The Constitution would be in play. Until we can answer those questions, the question of a Muslim president is a distant hypothetical, no more real than Bigfoot or flying spaghetti Monsters—and, until then, that's where it should remain.